1. Technical Field
This invention relates generally to speech therapy, and more particularly to a speech therapy system that provides real-time loudness alerts to a patient experiencing hyperphonia or hypophonia.
2. Description of Related Art
The term “loudness alerts” herein includes audible sounds provided to a patient as a realtime alert that the patient is speaking too softly (i.e., hypophonia) or too loudly (i.e., hyperphonia). Such loudness alerts may take any of various forms, including a “beep,” a brief period of white noise, a constant tone, or even the playing of an audio “.wav” file. An electronic module (i.e., a phonation monitor) that the patient wears or otherwise carries in the treatment of Parkinson's disease or phonotrauma autism (or other speech-affecting condition), produces the loudness alerts via an accompanying headset, earpiece, or other audio-producing transducer worn by the patient. The patient responds to the loudness alerts by adjusting their speech toward a desired voice level.
The voice-monitoring module available under the trademark “VOCALOG” from Griffin Laboratories of Temecula, Calif., provides an example. It includes electronic circuitry that collects speech data from the patient for up to three weeks to assist the clinician in identifying vocal patterns. In one form, the voice-monitoring module is mounted directly on the neckband of a Griffin Laboratories throat microphone along with an earpiece. That arrangement results in an effective speech therapy system referred to as a “vocal activity monitor.” The patient wears the vocal activity monitor on their neck in order to receive discreet loudness alerts via the module-and-earpiece combination for constant, on-the-go, realtime, biofeedback.
In operation, the throat microphone of the vocal activity monitor produces an electrical input signal indicative of the patient's vocal activity. That input signal is coupled to the electronic circuitry of the voice-monitoring module where its characteristics are compared with a table of parameters to determine if a loudness alert should be initiated. If a loudness alert is indicated (e.g., the patient is speaking too softly), the type of loudness alert to be produced is first determined according to stored parameters that the user had inputted to the module earlier. As the desired type of loudness alert is determined, the module produces an electrical loudness alert output signal, while sending the output signal to the audio-feedback component of the vocal activity monitor in order to produce an audible loudness alert sound for the patient's benefit.
Such loudness alerts prove to be quite effective in many respects. Some patients, however, need ongoing variation in the type of loudness alert produced, together with advantageous variation in frequency and volume. In addition, some patients exhibit a tendency to become calloused to the loudness alerts (i.e., insensitive or emotionally hardened). After awhile, they seem to ignore the loudness alerts altogether. For these and other reasons, a need exists for improvements in loudness-alerts equipment and techniques.